We caught up with the brilliant and insightful BARBARA Fisher a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

BARBARA, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

As a child, I always saw myself as an artist. I would spend hours alone in my room drawing and making up stories. My family was quite conservative, however, and didn’t think art was anything to pursue beyond being a hobby. I was a good student and went to college initially as a Philosophy major. That didn’t pan out, and after two years I dropped out to pursue art, much to my family’s chagrin. In my 20’s, I always made art but had a job as well – waitressing and eventually as a paralegal. At one point I became unsure of myself and applied to and was accepted into law school. I was continually committing to a creative life while intermittently being interrupted by ideas of what I “should” do.
I think I finally committed when I was about 30. I began to make paintings that had a lot of content and were backed up by ideas I had and things I had studied, such a Carl Jung’s ideas of a collective unconscious. My love of materials and the craft of art was finally being complemented by genuine personal backstory as well as knowledge of art history and philosophy.
During this productive time (in my 30’s), I received my first grant. This, more than any commercial success I was having, gave me the confidence to fully commit to being a professional artist.
So although I always knew I was an artist, it took quite a bit of trial and error for me to understand and pursue being a full time professional artist.

BARBARA, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have a studio in the River Arts District in Asheville NC, where I have lived for 25 years. I work here 5-6 days a week and sell my paintings from the studio as well as through galleries in other parts of the country. I welcome visitors to my studio a couple of days a week. People from all walks of life and all locations walk into my studio and I welcome their questions. This is when I become an educator. Allowing John and Jane Q Public into studio allows them to “see me in my natural habitat” and ask questions about process and ideas. I always tell people it’s not magic, it’s hard work and a true longing to express oneself in this way. This is the way I relate to the world. When people ask, “what is your inspiration?” (the most common question), I usually say it’s the work itself. I have always been interested in painting “the things you can’t see” The paintings depict an inner dialogue – each one hints at a narrative based on the way I envision energy, ideas, matter, psychic states, memories and other elements interacting. I have series with titles like Transformations, Tangled Mapping, Inside Out, Tiny Universes, Mutants and The Space Between.
I consider my studio a place of ongoing visual inquiry into what I call “the way things work”.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

It is rewarding to know that what I do is exactly what I was always meant to do, despite roadblocks along the way. I feel so fortunate that my day job is to express my vision of what is around me, and that people appreciate and buy my work, and that I might be giving them a different way to look at the world. I always tell people, “I just paint what I see”.
It’s not about “talent”, it’s about dedication and work and passion. The rewards are many – opening sceptical eyes to abstract work is always a fun challenge. Seeing what people project onto my work is always useful to me. One ten year old boy looked seriously for a long time and then asked, “Is this some kind of code?” To which I answered, yes, I guess it is.
It’s quite wonderful to be a part of someone’s seeing an aspect of reality that had not occurred to them before.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I guess we all did a major pivot during Covid. I embraced the challenge of working at home during lockdown. I decided to do a mail art project – who doesn’t love getting something in the mail, especially when stuck at home.? I made 65 small paintings and mailed them to 65 friends. They were called “Tiny Mutant Totems”, based on my Mutant series. These images look to me like genetic experiments gone wrong, but in a beautiful way. I didn’t mean for them to look like viruses, though some did. I had started the series a year before the Pandemic, so it was quite timely. Once I was back in my studio, I was happily surprised to find that people were interested in buying my art. Travel plans had been cancelled, people were “nesting” and fixing up their homes, so it was an unexpected and very much appreciated Pandemic silver lining for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: barbarafisher.com
• Instagram: @fishcakenc
• Facebook: Barbara Fisher